This law scroll must not leave your lips! You must memorize it day and night so you can carefully obey all that is written in it. Then you will prosper and be successful.

Joshua son of Nun sent two spies out from Shittim secretly and instructed them: "Find out what you can about the land, especially Jericho." They stopped at the house of a prostitute named Rahab and spent the night there.

She told them, "Head to the hill country, so the ones chasing you don't find you. Hide from them there for three days, long enough for those chasing you to return. Then you can be on your way."

But stay about three thousand feet behind it. Keep your distance so you can see which way you should go, for you have not traveled this way before."

If only we had been satisfied to live on the other side of the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say now that Israel has retreated before its enemies?

The men of Israel said to the Hivites, "Perhaps you live near us. So how can we make a treaty with you?"

but all the leaders told the whole community, "We swore an oath to them in the name of the Lord God of Israel. So now we can't hurt them!

We must let them live so we can escape the curse attached to the oath we swore to them."

"Come to my aid so we can attack Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and the Israelites."

The Lord told Joshua, "Don't be afraid of them, for I am handing them over to you. Not one of them can resist you."

Today I am still as strong as when Moses sent me out. I can fight and go about my daily activities with the same energy I had then.

The whole hill country will be yours; though it is a forest, you can clear it and it will be entirely yours. You can conquer the Canaanites, though they have chariots with iron-rimmed wheels and are strong."

Anyone who accidentally kills someone can escape there; these cities will be a place of asylum from the avenger of blood.

The Lord your God will drive them out from before you and remove them, so you can occupy their land as the Lord your God promised you.

The people responded, "Far be it from us to abandon the Lord so we can worship other gods!